


Feel Your Pulse

by holly_violet



Series: Laid Out One By One [1]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Life-affirming, M/M, Simon Snow Deserves Nice Things, Watford Seventh Year, but at LIGHT SPEED, but simon and agatha have already broken up bc cheating is BAD, emotionally significant shampoo use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 03:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20632652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holly_violet/pseuds/holly_violet
Summary: simonI’m so tired.I actually don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired, this entirely drained both physically and mentally, in my whole life.My clothes are literally in rags, and there’s mud and gravel caked in my skin and hair. My knees are scraped raw from landing hard on the concrete. My shoulder-blades ache where honest-to-God wings sprung from them just a few hours ago.As I drag my weary limbs up the stairs to my room (ourroom), my mind is still racing. I definitely still haven’t even processed anything that happened today, and I’m not sure I want to, because I reckon that if I think too hard about it I might not ever feel really safe again.(or, the aftermath of Simon and Penny being taken by the Humdrum in 7th year. prequel to Laid Out One By One, but you don't need to have read one to read the other.)





	Feel Your Pulse

**Author's Note:**

> hey SO i wrote a fic a couple months ago called Laid Out One By One, and I just couldn't let it go, so here's the prequel. 
> 
> important note: even though this is set in 7th year, Simon and Agatha have already broken up, because CHEATING IS BAD. 
> 
> enjoy!

**simon**

I’m so tired.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired, this entirely drained both physically and mentally, in my whole life.

My clothes are literally in rags, and there’s mud and gravel caked in my skin and hair. My knees are scraped raw from landing hard on the concrete. My shoulder-blades ache where honest-to-God wings sprung from them just a few hours ago.

As I drag my weary limbs up the stairs to my room ( _ our _ room), my mind is still racing. I definitely still haven’t even processed anything that happened today, and I’m not sure I want to, because I reckon that if I think too hard about it I might not ever feel really safe again. 

I can still feel the way Penny clung to my arm the whole time— there’s bruises on my forearms, and I’m sure she has it worse, since I was definitely squeezing her hand a bit too tightly. There’s no blood on either of us anymore, not from the wings of sinew and gore which sprung from my back, nor where it seeped through our pores from the painful suck of the Humdrum, who looks like me.

The Humdrum looks like me. Not me now,  _ little  _ me, when I was eleven and new to all of this. He was bouncing my red ball, had the same too-big clothes and scruffy haircut. I don’t know what that means about it  _ or  _ about me, but again I’ve decided not to do too much thinking on that until I’m in a better state.

The adults, after checking briefly that we were okay and healing any major injuries (they skipped my knees, though, so they still sting a lot) interrogated us for an hour about where we’d been and what had happened. Penny didn’t tell them the Humdrum is wearing my face, so I didn’t either. She also didn’t tell them about the wings.

None of them tried to comfort either of us, even though we were obviously scared out of our minds.

Not that I really expected much comfort, to be totally honest.

These stairs are insurmountable. How did I not realise there’s so many of them until now? I’m leaving a muddy handprint on the handrail, but I’ll spell it away later, because I’m pulling myself up with my arms more than my legs and if I let go I’ll likely fall over.

The door to our room is unlocked, which means Baz is inside, which is just the cherry on top of this day.

As I shove the door open with my shoulder, Baz barely looks up from his book.

“Snow,” he says, nodding slightly at me, and then does a double-take, eyes widening when he fully takes in my general state of being. He looks me up and down for a second, and I don’t know why I feel so self-conscious about it. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“I don’t need this, Baz. I have had the long day to end all long days.”

“Yes, I heard that you and Bunce got yourselves into some kind of shenanigans again.”

“We didn’t get  _ ourselves _ into trouble. The Humdrum summoned us from halfway across the UK,” I grumble, and I probably  _ definitely  _ shouldn’t have told him that.

He raises his eyebrows even further, finally closing his book and paying attention.

“Come again?”

I kick my trainers off, running a hand through my mud-covered hair. “Humdrum tried to summon me, got both of us instead.”

“Of course it did. Never a dull moment with you.” He says it in a way that probably  _ should  _ sound cutting and sarcastic, but he actually looks mildly concerned, so it comes out almost fond. “Go and take a shower, I don’t want you getting mud everywhere.”

Normally we don’t shower or change when the other is in the room. It’s a delicately balanced system, and this is just another thing today which is throwing my life off-kilter. I don’t have the energy to ask him to leave, though. I don’t even think I care anymore. He’s not doing me any harm.

I shower quickly, even though the way the near-scalding water feels on my shoulder and neck muscles is heavenly, because I think I might collapse and that would be  _ really  _ embarrassing in the shower. It takes some scrubbing to get the mud and general debris out of my hair, so I steal some of Baz’s posh shampoo. It smells like our room does, like  _ he  _ does, and that shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. My world has been altered permanently today, but Baz’s fancy cedar-and-bergamot-scented products will probably never change.

When I step back into the room with a towel around my waist, enhaloed by steam (because I still can never remember to turn on the bathroom fan), Baz’s head shoots up. He looks at me for a second, then clears his throat.

“Did you use my shampoo?”

“Sorry, I had to, if you hadn’t noticed I was a bit of a mess.”

“Fair point. Don’t make a habit of it.” 

I was expecting much more of a rebuke than that, but I’m glad he isn’t kicking up a fuss. I don’t feel like fighting him this evening.

I flop down on my bed once I’ve pulled on some joggers, wet hair soaking my pillowcase. I look up at Baz, who’s still sat at his desk, but now he’s got out a pad of paper and he’s doodling, and he doesn’t look anywhere near as intimidating and vampirically beautiful as he usually does. He just looks like a normal teenage boy, rather than my arch-nemesis.

Although… I suppose he isn’t my arch-nemesis any more, is he? Since the Humdrum is somewhere close to corporeal. I might still have to fight Baz at some point, but he is much further down my priority list than he was yesterday. And now that I have a much bigger, more imminent threat, I can’t even find myself wanting to fight him at all. 

He turns around, like he’s somehow sensed me thinking about him, and I dart my eyes away to stare at the ceiling.

“Crowley, Snow, your magic’s doing the thing again where it makes this entire room smell like a gas stove someone’s left on. Stop thinking so hard.” Oh. So he  _ had  _ sensed me thinking. 

“That’s not very easy right now,” I murmur, and he turns around in his chair.

“Then tell me whatever it is that’s making you so—” He gestures in a way that vaguely looks like an explosion, and it’s very endearing, “—you know. Get it off your chest, so I can get on with this without having a constant reminder of your ridiculous power.”

“Get on with  _ what?  _ You’re doodling.”

“Doodling my secret plan for your downfall.” I guess we can joke about that now. Well,  _ he  _ can joke about it. I think if I made a comment like that about killing him, he might take it seriously, and I suddenly really don’t want to hurt him even if I have to.

“No, I can see at least three roses on that piece of paper.”

“They’re poison roses. Go on, out with it.”

I sit up with a start and lean against the wall so that I can look him in the eyes when I talk.

“I guess I’m just thinking about how I have much bigger things to deal with than you.” He looks offended for a second, almost hurt, and he opens his mouth to snap back at me before I keep talking. “Not like that! Like, I don’t want to have to fight with you all the time when I could also not do that. I have to fight the Humdrum, I’ve always known that’s going to happen at some point and maybe that’ll kill me, and that’s just my destiny. But sometimes it feels like our whole thing has been blown out of proportion.”

He scoffs. “What do you mean,  _ blown out of proportion? _ You’re the Mage’s Heir, I’m part of the Old Families, we’ve just been waiting for the final blowout battle since we were eleven.”

“But do we have to have that battle? I don’t want to hurt you, if you don’t want to hurt me then maybe we don’t need to.”

“Decades of conflict in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations isn’t going to be solved by the power of bloody friendship, Snow! And you’re seriously claiming you don’t want to hurt me? You broke my nose twice.”

“Yeah, when we were fourteen! I’ve had a bit of an epiphany, and I’ve changed my mind about all that. I’m not going to fight with you about this, or preferably at all. Alright?”

I get that it’s a pretty major about-face, but I don’t think Baz really needs to be as dramatic about this as he is being. He’s got his hands on his hips, and he’s doing something complicated and hard to read with his expression which  _ could  _ be pleased and  _ could  _ be irritated. 

“ _ Alright? _ I mean, yeah, sounds great, but I really don’t think you understand how far-reaching the conflict is between your Mage and my family.”

“Maybe I don’t. Sure. But the part of the conflict that we  _ can _ control is what’s between  _ us,  _ and I think that we should do our bit, you know?”

He sighs, like I’m impossible. I think I’m being pretty logical, which is a shocker for me.

“Okay, then. You’re proposing a truce.”

“That’s part of it, but I also would like to at least be a  _ bit  _ friends with you. I mean, we’ve known each other for seven years.”

Now he looks even  _ more  _ bewildered. 

“What? Where is this  _ coming  _ from? You’ve insisted you hate me for the whole time I’ve known you!”

“Not the whole time! When we met, I tried to be friends with you, and  _ you  _ were the one who refused to even try. Can’t we have a second chance?”

He’s silent for a second, before shrugging resignedly and turning back to his desk. “Fine. But just know that I’m not really expecting much to change. I think it’s hard-wired into your brain to argue with me.”

“Well, it’s hard-wired into  _ your  _ brain to be a prat, so—”

“See what I mean? Are we even capable of—”

“Yes! Seriously! We don’t have to be nice to each other all the time to be friends. Me and Penny—

“It’s Penny and I _ .” _

“Alright, then,  _ Penny and I _ aren’t always nice, we poke fun at each other all the time, but she’s still my best friend.”

“I suppose that’s true. Well, then, I accept the terms of your truce.”

“There’s no  _ terms,  _ you posh shit, this isn’t a truce, it’s friendship. Are you familiar?”

He flips me the middle finger, but I can see that he’s laughing, despite the fact that his back is turned away from me. I’m quite pleased with myself— I don’t think I’ve ever made him laugh before. Or  _ seen  _ him laugh. It’s a nice sound. I think I’d like to make him laugh more often.

\--

Later, when my hair’s dried into a lopsided mess on my pillow and Baz has moved from doodling at the desk to reading on his bed in his pyjamas, and it’s dark outside, I still can’t rest. Even though I’m so tired that I could fall over. I just can’t get my brain to shut up.

I can’t stop thinking about Penny. And about Agatha. And how being associated with me has gotten them into trouble so many times. And now, Penny could’ve been killed or seriously hurt.

I want desperately to see her and to give her a hug and let her lean against my shoulder like she usually does, just to confirm that she’s okay and that she isn’t going anywhere. I don’t know if she would want that. She’s more sensible than I am. I won’t bother her.

I press my fingers to my wrist, over the vein. Penny told me once that that might help me calm down. Right now I think I just need to remind myself that I’m alive.

I can’t find my pulse point. I’ve never been able to. 

Baz flicks his eyes up and looks at me getting increasingly frustrated, and turns over the corner of the page he’s on in his book and puts it down.

“Give me your wrist, I’ll show you how to do it. It’s a basic first aid skill, Snow, you should really know already.”

I smile at him, and he rolls his eyes and turns to face me, pulling my hand into his. He places his fingertips on my wrist, and his hands are warmer than I expected them to be, calloused at the tips from playing his violin. I guess that means he must have fed at some point this evening. Maybe that’s why he can handle being so close to my vein. Or he’s just consciously not biting me.

“There. See?”

I place my fingers where his were, and he lets go of me and sits back on his bed. I almost miss his hand holding mine, which is probably weird. Maybe I’m just touch-starved, but I can feel my pulse, and Penny was right. It’s relaxing.

“Thank you.”

He nods in response, and opens his book again.

“Baz?”

He sighs. “What  _ now _ , Snow?”

“This is going to sound weird, but would you sit with me? I really don’t want to be alone.”

“You aren’t alone, I’m sat about two metres away from you.”

“You know what I mean.”

He quirks an eyebrow, in that infuriating way of his. “Do I?”

“ _ Yes.  _ Just, would you…” I pat the bed in front of me. 

He sighs, and shifts beds, bringing his big European pillow with him to lean back against. He sits cross-legged, and lets the hand that isn’t turning the pages of his book rest on the bed. He’s never been this casual around me.

I sit up, mirroring his posture, and try my best to muddle through the study materials we’ve been given for our end-of-year Elocution exams. Baz stretches an arm above his head and fiddles with his hair— it’s longer than usual, almost brushing his shoulders. It’s probably soft as anything, with all the conditioner he uses.

I can’t sit still for very long, and I haven’t got anything to fiddle with, so I dig my nails into the palms of my hands, the blunt ends leaving crescent-moon marks. I rub my thumb down the side of my index finger, over and over again, until Baz reaches his hand out and abruptly takes mine.

“Constant movement in the corner of my eye isn’t particularly helpful,” he says, like holding my hand is a purely selfish act. He starts doing the same motion I was before, running his thumb over the top of my hand. “And digging your nails into your hand isn’t a healthy coping mechanism.”

So now I’m sitting on my bed and studying (well, not  _ really.  _ I wasn’t concentrating before, and now I’m  _ extra  _ not concentrating) and holding hands with Baz, and somehow this doesn’t feel weird or foreign. His hands are rougher than Agatha’s or Penny’s— I think it’s because he’s a fire magician, like his Mum was. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” I don’t think he’s being sincere, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Not really, to be honest, but it helps that you’re here. Reminds me that I’m alive, I guess?”

“You’re the most  _ alive  _ person I know,” he says, and I don’t really know what he means, so I just look quizzically at him. “You know what I mean, like you’re always overflowing with energy. It’s rather annoying.”

There’s no malice in it. It wouldn’t really be effective when he’s holding my hand and looking softly at me.  _ Soft  _ isn’t a Baz expression I’m familiar with. I quite like it.

And then, all evening, every so often one of us will creep just a little bit closer, gain a little bit more contact.

At some point I end up with his head beside my leg, lying on his back and holding his book above his head. When I give in to what the very insistent part of my brain wants me to do and sink my fingers into his hair, he drops his book on his face and when he picks it back up again, his cheeks are almost red. And his hair is just as soft as I expected it to be. He doesn’t complain as I run my hand through it absently; it’s a nice tactile thing to do instead of fidgeting now that he’s let go of my hand again, and he closes his eyes and puts his book down eventually, totally relaxed.

I don’t fully know what’s happening right now, but I certainly like it, and I think he does, too. At least my mind has partially stopped racing at a thousand miles per hour. 

Baz tilts his head to the side a little, hair falling to the side and long-lashed eyes blinking slowly a few times, and I don’t know how I never noticed that Baz is, like,  _ pretty. _

I mean, I was aware that he’s attractive, considering that Agatha liked him, and objectively I’ve always thought he’s handsome in that dark, romantic kind of way. But relaxed like this, lying beside me with his hair loose in waves around his face and his eyes closed, he’s pretty. Which is not a word I think I have ever used to describe a boy, never mind Baz. But it fits. 

And, now that I don’t have to pretend that I hate him, a number of things suddenly click into place in my brain, vis-a-vis how obsessed with him I was in fifth year and how I literally can’t go one lunchtime without mentioning him and how I go down to the football pitch to watch the team practice almost every week for absolutely no heterosexual reason.

Fuck. 

He opens one eye. “What?”

I panic for a second, thinking I said something out loud, but I definitely didn’t. I must have been staring at him. I think he has some kind of sixth sense.

“Nothing.” I’m almost definitely blushing. 

“No, what is it?” He sits up, leaning on his arm, and smiles. “You’ve gone bright red, so it isn’t  _ nothing. _ ” So I was right. And, now that I’ve realised that I’m unfortunately attracted to _ Baz _ of all people and he’s very close to me, I’m probably even redder than I was ten seconds ago.

“Seriously, it’s nothing, go back to sleep.” Obviously I know he wasn’t asleep, but I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by saying something like ‘ _ go back to letting me play with your hair and then maybe fall asleep on my bed’. _

“I wasn’t asleep, you have to tell me, since we’re apparently friends now.” He pokes me in the chest. I’d forgotten that I’m not actually wearing a shirt, and I think Baz had, too.

He’s looking up at me, and the smile on his face has dropped into something entirely different as he lets his hand fall away with a jolt. I can still feel where he jabbed his finger against my skin, and his eyes are a grey I could get lost in, and I really want to kiss him.

Okay. Okay. Maybe I’m letting this crush I apparently now have on Baz (I think I’ve possibly had it for a while) move too quickly. Or maybe this is a natural reaction, because he’s been worrying his bottom lip with his teeth and when he’s this close to me I can see where it’s more pink than usual. 

“Um,” he tries to start. His eyes flicker down to my lips, and a shiver runs down my spine. “I’m just. Uh.”

I’ve never heard him talk like this— the way I usually speak. He sounds distracted, and  _ possibly  _ like he’s thinking the same thing I am. He takes my hand, again, and I’m breathing like I’ve just run a marathon. 

I think I’m going to kiss him. I want to kiss him so badly, all at once and irrevocably.

So I take him by the jaw, as gently as I can, and I do.

It’s barely a brush of lips, soft enough that he could move away in an instant and we could never talk about this again, if he wanted that. 

I pull back after a couple of seconds, and his eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen. My hand is still on his chin. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, and something cold starts creeping up my throat.

“Uh, earth to Baz?” 

He blinks a couple of times and I can actually  _ see  _ the moment his brain comes back online. In a rush of breath, he just says  _ “Simon,”  _ and then he’s kissing me.

He said my actual  _ name.  _ I’m not tired anymore. He sits up a bit to wrap his leg over me and push me down so my head’s on my pillow, and he’s practically sitting on my lap, and  _ yeah,  _ of course it should be like this.

I let my hand move down his side to rest at his waist, lifting up his pyjama top, and he gasps at the skin-on-skin contact and deepens the kiss, slipping his tongue into my mouth, and that feels about as incredible as I thought it would.

Kissing Agatha was never like this. She always used to kiss me like it was something fun but unnecessary, like she would be totally fine if we never kissed at all or did  _ anything  _ couple-y. Now, with Baz, he’s tugging at my lower lip with his teeth and practically sucking on my tongue, and every time we have to separate to gasp for breath he’ll tilt his chin forward and chase my mouth as if he never wants to let go, and I definitely know how he feels.

I should have known that kissing him would be just as aggressive and passionate as fighting with him was. 

He pulls away for a moment and he’s smiling,  _ actually smiling,  _ with nothing mocking or malicious or condescending in it at all. He presses his forehead to my chest for a second, and it’s pleasantly cool.

“Holy shit,” I say breathlessly, “How has this taken us this long?”

He looks back up at me like he doesn’t really believe I’m real. He’s still beaming at me, and he’s stunning when he smiles.

He kisses me again. And again, and we’re both so inexplicably happy that we’re almost laughing into each other’s mouths. I never even thought of this until less than fifteen minutes ago. It feels like we’re always going to be making up for years of lost time.

\--

“Why did you decide to kiss me?” Baz says, later, as we’re lying together in my bed. He’s still got his posh pyjama top on, but the first two buttons are undone. My neck and shoulders are covered in little red marks— I don’t know whether the fact that he gave me those confirms or denies that he’s a vampire, but I digress.

“Loaded question.”

“What’s the best answer, then?”

“Well, mainly because I wanted to, and I figured that you did too.”

“And you were right. How uncharacteristically perceptive of you.” I laugh softly, and press my forehead against his shoulder.

“I think it was maybe also, what’s the word…  _ life-affirming.  _ Like, Penny and I went through some pretty rough stuff today, and I guess I wanted to remind myself that I’m alive and you’re alive and we’re all okay.”

He flinches when I say  _ you’re alive,  _ like he wants to disagree. I don’t point it out, but I make a mental note of it— I want to stay in this soft moment for a bit longer before I get into any of that stuff. I turn my face upwards, and kiss the frown off his lips.

He makes an incomprehensible noise in his throat.

“What?”

“Just that in the space of an evening we’ve gone from sworn enemies to you kissing me to cheer me up. I can’t believe it.”

“Pretty wild, right? But I’m glad I had a minor epiphany and decided I wanted this, rather than the  _ sworn enemies  _ stuff.”

“Elaborate, please?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, I guess when we were just hanging out before I thought ‘ _ Oh, Baz is fit and I’ve been fixated on him since we were eleven, maybe these are not feelings of heterosexual hatred, Simon _ ’ and went from there.”

“Oh, I’m  _ fit,  _ am I?” I elbow him in the stomach.

“You know that you are.”

All of a sudden, all the tiredness from before which got put on the back-burner when I kissed Baz hits me in a wave, and my eyelids feel too heavy to keep open.

Baz reaches behind him to his bed and blindly hits his duvet until he finds his wand, waving it and muttering a  **Lights out!** , and the room is cast into darkness. I close my eyes to let them adjust, and when I open them, Baz is looking at me almost fondly.

“I would really love to stay up right now, but I’ve had the longest of long days.”

“Go to sleep, then.” We’re close enough that I can feel his breath when he speaks. The room is warm— normally it would be too warm for me, but with Baz’s arm wrapped around my waist, it’s so cosy that I’m not going to complain.

“Will you stay?”

He exhales in a rush, like the air has been forced from him all at once. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay.”

I fall asleep miraculously quickly, and dreamlessly, and with my forehead pressed to Baz’s chest just over his heartbeat, I sleep better than I have in years.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> this is in a series w/ Laid Out One By One (you should read that if you haven't it's my pride and joy) and idk if I'll write more little one-shots for that AU. we'll see. I'd call them 'laid out one by oneshots.'
> 
> kudos and comments are always appreciated very much!


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